Former Wife Strikes Out In $10 Million Lawsuit

Jury: No Evidence Yankees Partner Is Guilty Of Abuse

June 20, 1996|By MIKE FOLKS Staff Writer

A Palm Beach County jury on Wednesday declined to award damages to the ex-wife of a partner in the New York Yankees organization who sought payment for abuse she claimed she endured in her five-year marriage.

Nancy Satter, 57, who received $1 million in her 1993 divorce from former husband Jack Satter, 74, and a promise of $1.5 million when her ex-husband dies, had sought $10 million in damages for mental and physical abuse.

Nancy Satter filed the lawsuit in 1994, after a 1993 Florida Supreme Court decision ended a ban on husbands and wives suing each other for civil damages.

Nancy Satter said she had been scarred permanently by the abuse and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Jack Satter, who owns 6 percent of the Yankees and has a net worth of about $14 million and two homes in the Boca Raton area, denied that the abuse ever took place.

"The evidence showed there was not enough there to substantiate her claims," said Julie Littky, one of Jack Satter's attorneys.

Robert Montgomery, one of Nancy Satter's attorneys, said he was not surprised by the verdict because the statute of limitations prevented him from presenting evidence of abuse between 1986 and 1989.

"I was limited to one incident of assault that was undocumented," he said.

In his closing argument, Joe Reiter, one of Jack Satter's attorneys, said four doctors who treated Nancy Satter never had seen any signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, only depression caused by the divorce.

"It's a good life," Reiter said, citing Nancy Satter's houses in Florida and Cape Cod in Massachusetts, and the monetary settlement she received in her divorce. "Does this sound like somebody who's having a terrible life?'' But Montgomery said an award to Nancy Satter would send a message to abusive husbands.

He cited the testimony of one witness who said Nancy Satter had suffered a broken rib, a black eye and was beaten with a telephone by her husband during their marriage.

"This is what batterers do. They control," Montgomery told the jury. "Did Mr. Satter know what he was doing? Exactly."